!Kung -- What?

[chike_eze]

Just like Game 4 on PT 67, I thought the !Kung passage (PT 67, RC, P2) was especially difficult to wrap my head around. In fact I know !Kung was difficult for me because even after re-doing it twice, I still struggle with at least two of the questions.

In one review, I cancelled out all the exclamation points (!) pre-Kung, so I could focus more on the content of the passage, and not consistently get distracted by "What the heck is that '!' in front of.. O! what was I reading again??". However, even without the weird contraption, I still found it difficult to fully understand the text. This started with the very first sentence -- "explication of experience as object and method..." What does that even mean?

Question: In a situation like this, where you have distracting language and complicated words, what is the best way to maximize time spent on such a passage? Even if it means missing a few questions without sacrificing 12+ minutes on a difficult passage.

[ohthatpatrick]

Yeah, this was definitely a challenging passage for almost everyone who read it!

If you haven't already read my write-up on how I made it through this passage, check this out:
passage-discussion-t6879.html

In that thread, I make a lot of suggestions about how we can use the structural guideposts to understand the big picture, even if we don't understand the nitty-gritty.

In order to get through a passage whose details are hard to read, you need to focus on finding, structurally, where the main points are.

It helps if you're already attuned to several things in RC:
1. Broad sounding organizational ideas. The 1st paragraph of !Kung showed us the 3 main points the author was going to make by saying "First", "Second", "Third". As we read the next three paragraphs, we know their point/purpose is just to flesh out these 1st/2nd/3rd ideas.

2. Sentences that emphasize opposition of ideas. The 1st sentence mentions Shostak "challenging the ethnographer's penchant for ....". That tells me that the author wants to discuss an ethnographer with an interesting, noteworthy difference from others. How is Shostak different? If I can't answer that question by the end of the passage, I need to look over parts of the passage again to connect the dots and to clarify confusing sentences that seem to ultimately matter.

3. The first important BUT/YET/HOWEVER/RECENTLY idea, which I call "The Turn", when the author goes from background or other people's ideas into his primary focus/purpose. (This passage didn't have one of those, but most big ideas are found after BUT/YET/HOWEVER/RECENTLY).

I thought the !Kung passage was a good example of one in which the big picture is easy to find, because the 1st paragraph enumerates the main points in an orderly fashion.

That doesn't mean the big picture is easy to understand, but if you can find the most valuable sentences, then you know where to look when you're answering questions.

Other thoughts ...
- if you can tell early on that a passage is really challenging, and you still have other passages you could be doing, then definitely be flexible enough to consider just bailing and saving the hard passage for last. It's obviously quite hard to succeed at an RC passage if its readability is very low, so it's not worth investing 10+ mins if there are other options.

- if you are going to commit to reading a passage, make sure you have some sense of the main point of each paragraph. If you don't, you really should re-read the paragraph at least once to see if you can ascertain a better understanding. When applicable, lean on the topic sentence of the paragraph, which will often summarize the big idea of the paragraph.

- fyi, I believe the "!" is the clicking sound you make with your tongue on the roof of your mouth. That percussive sound is part of some African languages, and I think the "!" is how we signify that it written speech.

Good luck!